Struggling with broker gatekeeping on larger deals?

August 04, 2025

by a searcher from University of Southern California in Austin, TX, USA

We’re working on a new feature at Mainshares that will help searchers get soft-commitments from investors earlier in their search to help with combat broker gatekeeping. Is anyone here open to being part of a small group of beta testers to get early access to the feature and help give us feedback (via a 30 min research call)? Perfect candidates are people who have been boxed-out of good deals early because brokers wanted to see either access to funds or access to specific industry expertise. Comment or DM me if you are interested!

Reply by a searcher
from The University of Chicago in Dallas, TX, USA

I am interested and currently running into this exact issue! Brokers are gatekeeping deals due to two main concerns: lack of significant personal capital available to invest and concerns around direct industry experience. On one recent deal, they expected me to personally show $350K out of a $700K total equity injection. I’m willing and able to participate in the equity injection (up to $100k), but can't show what they are asking. I’ve also heard from several lenders that SBA guidelines have become stricter and now require direct industry experience for any business I’m looking to acquire. Seems to run counter to many SBA-funded deals I'm seeing done where the sponsors / searchers definitely do not have 'direct industry experience'.

Reply by an intermediary
from University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, USA & Berlin, Germany

I've avoided broker deals for the last 30 years so not to engage in bidding auctions by doing my own outreach and converting relunctant Company owners into sellsers. Having direct discussions increases the outcomes of closing a deal a 1000% at a much lower multiply.

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